Flying Spaghetti Monster to star at American Academy of Religion
Link (Thanks, Rick!)The title: "Evolutionary Controversy and a Side of Pasta: The Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Subversive Function of Religious Parody."
"For a lot of people they're just sort of fun responses to religion, or fun responses to organized religion. But I think it raises real questions about how people approach religion in their lives," said Samuel Snyder, one of the three Florida graduate students who will give talks at the meeting next Monday along with Alyssa Beall of Syracuse University.
The presenters' titles seem almost a parody themselves of academic jargon. Snyder will speak about "Holy Pasta and Authentic Sauce: The Flying Spaghetti Monster's Messy Implications for Theorizing Religion," while Gavin Van Horn's presentation is titled "Noodling around with Religion: Carnival Play, Monstrous Humor, and the Noodly Master."
Using a framework developed by literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin, Van Horn promises in his abstract to explore how, "in a carnivalesque fashion, the Flying Spaghetti Monster elevates the low (the bodily, the material, the inorganic) to bring down the high (the sacred, the religiously dogmatic, the culturally authoritative)."
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I like the perspective of elevating the low to take a jab at the high.
Maybe it works b/c the Christianity which this monster most clearly parodies is already scandalous in the same manner, with the creator of all things becoming a man and dying in order to undie by virtue of the deep magic of an indistructible life, so now the christians say "the redepmtion of our bodies,for in this hope we were saved"
so, bodies that rot and turn to ashes can get permanent entropyless bodies because god punished god to death for violations of nongods.
That illustration of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is beautiful! It would look even better as a velvet painting!
Bring on the beer volcanoes!
"the low (the bodily, the material, the inorganic)"
So...everything?
Excuse me, but religious parody?
I'm insulted by that hate-filled, anti-religious tract. It's garbage like that, that alienates the Community of Faith from academia and the Left. Insulting and demeaning.
"Using a framework developed by literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin..."
From Wikipedia:
Throughout the text, Bakhtin attempts two things: he seeks to recover sections of Gargantua and Pantagruel that, in the past, were either ignored or suppressed, and conducts an analysis of the Renaissance social system in order to discover the balance between language that was permitted and language that was not. It is by means of this analysis that Bakhtin pinpoints two important subtexts: the first is carnival (carnivalesque) which Bakhtin describes as a social institution, and the second is grotesque realism (grotesque body) which is defined as a literary mode. Thus, in Rabelais and His World Bakhtin studies the interaction between the social and the literary, as well as the meaning of the body.
OK, it's official: FSM is not funny any more.
I am offended that Pastafarianism is being called a parody! We might as well call all religions parodies in that case!
"It's garbage like that, that alienates the Community of Faith from academia and the Left. Insulting and demeaning."
Actually the community of faith does a fine job of alienating itself.
That at and people like you.
"the sacred, the religiously dogmatic, the culturally authoritative"
".. but I repeat myself."
Holy teapot!
"...that hate-filled, anti-religious tract. It's garbage like that..."
Anti-religious? Sure, if you like.
Garbage? Fair comment, as your subjective opinion.
But hate-filled? Not in the slightest - the only hate I detect here is yours. Precisely the kind of hate that alienates academia, the Left and many, many other individuals and groups (including many on the Right and more temperate religious people) from your hate-filled "Community of Faith".
I bet you hated Life of Brian, too, and thought that was motivated by hate. Look up the word "parody" sometime. The worst you will find is "ridicule" - but I doubt there is any accepted definition that employs the word hate.
But well done! Do keep up the good work. No, seriously...
@Bonnie - you should check out the whole illustration:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Touched_by_His_Noodly_Appendage.jpg
"...that hate-filled, anti-religious tract. It's garbage like that..."
Did you, perhaps, look at what it was created in response to? I think it works in it's context.
And, well...I have more respect for anything that can laugh at itself.
surely you people realize that #5 is thoroughly tongue in cheek, right?
Just remember, nothing is in pasta bowl
#14 Surely you realize that #5 is showing you the hypocrisy of the anti-religious movement?
I think you need to clarify what you mean by that, Zipster. I don't believe there's so much an anti-religious movement, per se, so much as a growing number of individuals who independently would prefer religious institutions to remain in their native milieux, and will respond to overreaches with criticism. If you don't see the difference, that's unfortunate but not unexpected; therein lays the disconnect. As Howard Bloom says, it's a great testament to our society and human development that, by and large, biting rhetoric is the worst you need fear.
At the Mid-Atlantic Subgenius Devival last weekend in Baltimore, Rev. Ivan Stang gave a shout-out to the FSM, though as a point of saying "Bob" is not a joke like the FSM, revering it nevertheless. And, as the Subgenius central tenet says, Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke.
So can somebody provide an actual link to the Academy's seminar posting? I just went to their site, checked their program for this year and even googled the site for flying monster and no hits.
How much ya wanna bet the CNN link is a spoof?
This is one of the things that drives me nuts with most blog posts (not just here); the links provided almost NEVER go to the source but rather to a secondary source that references another secondary source that...in an almost GNU-like recursive link set that goes nowhere.
Proof anybody?
is this joke still going! let it die already.
im off to dig out my "all your base are belong to us" tshirt
Pastafarism Religion Wars (in spanish)
http://www.legiondelespacio.com/tira.php?id=118
This is so very cool on so many levels.
Proof anybody?
There's no proof Dogu... you just have to believe
:-)
posted by ThomasMcCay , November 17, 2007 7:47 PM
This whole FSM thing has given me many, many good laughs. I thank all pastaferians for your sense of humour.
However, most of the laughing, you will understand, comes from the reactions of those not yet touched by his noodly apendage.
I have not been touched by it either unless the irrestable urge to laugh at religious foolery is a sign of being 'touched'.
In that spirit I would like to toss a well ripened Roma tomato (great for sauce) in the general direction of those who see "hatred" in the meat balls of the FSM.
Those who see hate in this parody clearly expose themselves as persons motivated by fear, hatred, and other negative psychological states.
The fear, anger and yes hatred that pours from these followers of gentle Jesus, meek and mild, reflects very clearly on the nature of their pseudo gods.
I'm not as suprised as i should that they would feature such a piece. I did a showing of a series of pop iconography a few years back (http://www.sabresedge.com/dang/popi.html) and sold some of my edgier/condemnable pieces to a local seminary...and yes it DID sound like a trap when he had me deliver them.
Check out this animated paper kit you can download, cut out, and assemble to make your very own moving Flying Spaghetti Monster (about half-way down the page on the left.)
Regards,
Dug North
The fact the AAR is discussing the role of FSM in contemporary dialogue is actually quite intriguing to me and as someone with a bit of exposure to philosophical theology and philosophy or religion it actually makes quite a bit of sense.
Although intentionally non-sensical, FSM is presented as an alternative to the traditional idea of God and thus represents the ultimate resolution of what is currently unknowable, unknown or plausibly debatable. FSM seems to be most enjoyed by those who are explicitly atheist and as such disavow anything "Transcendent" or (classically) metaphysical. In these intances, FSM is employed to ridicule (by absurdity) any reference to a Transcendent with the implication that all unknowns will eventually be resolved through purely scientific inquiry. Thus at one level, FSM is a derisive atheistic construct which serves as a scientifically optimistic placeholder in discussions involving the limit of their own or others' current knowledge.
No one doubts that the limit of human knowledge exists. What FSM boils down to is whether or not a portion of that unknown is inherently transcendent. Atheistic use of FSM would say 'no' while a great many others (who may or may not believe in "God") would say 'yes'. Thus FSM represents the age-old issue as to whether scientific inquiry will eventually answer all questions.
I doubt AAR is interested in FSM solely for its atheism, since atheism has been previously dealt with by theologians/philosophers near ad naseum in the past through engagement with much more sophisticated arguments. I suspect the interest lies in its use as a placeholder for the transcendent, a theme which is alive and well in contemporary religious and philosophical discussion along "post-metaphysical" lines thanks to major players like Heidegger, Derrida and Jean Luc Marion. These thinkers (all within the school of Phenomenology) agree that traditional views of God/Transcendence, in which the Transcendent speaks or interacts in highly anthropological terms, need to undergo a rethinking or 'deconstruction'. But none posits that a Transcendent does not exist. The degree to which one can know anything about the Transcendent is at question in their discussions.
And I think it is here that FSM has traction with AAR interests. If the new interweb meme of FSM stands as a contruct for the Transcendent (whether mockingly or otherwise), at the very least it demonstrates that such a placeholder exists (vigorously) in the most contemporary vocabulary of bright scientifically-minded intertube front-runners such as yourselves (and I do consider you all as such). The existence of FSM suggests that the conceptual universes of atheists and transcendentalists are not so diverse and that it proves useful in both instances to create a placeholder for the unknown. The difference seems to boil down to whether one fills that placeholder with either an optimistic scientism which holds that all unknowns are inevitably resolvable through enough scientific inquiry or a form of transcendentalism which posits that certain unknowables find their resolution only in what cannot possibly be experientially or phenomenologically ascertained.
Or maybe i am completely mistaken and the AAR discussions of FSM will revolve around the possible dimensions of the cosmic meatballs which make up its/her/his eyeballs...
"is this joke still going! let it die already."
When it stops being relevant, it will die. Unfortunately, the idiocies are still apparent.